Thursday, October 05, 2006

Displacementary: an Artvsts Exhibition

Saturday night after the Singapore Biennale volunteer soiree I went with a bunch of cute teenagers to the new City Gallery at Basheer Graphic Books in Bras Basah Complex.

Artvsts is a new urban artist collective. I think their work is pretty good.

You see, the thing about street art in Singapore is that it's not taken seriously by either the man in the street (who doesn't like contemporary art in general and is suspicious of vandals) or the man in the ivory tower (who thinks that Singapore street art can't be genuine because we don't have a real street culture). I'm starting to learn from this and other collectives that graphic street culture in Singapore is strong and alive, particularly among the young Malay community - I believe all five of the Artvsts core members are young Malay men.

The thing is, there is one sector of the population who can really appreciate street art, and that's young people - because we/they feed off the spirit of rebellion and anarchy that goes with urban culture. If we're interested in promoting visual arts, why not take more steps to include urban art so we can attract young aficionados of graffitoed walls - who may well grow up to be curators, art writers and auction attendees (argh, I know, I speak like the co-opted, but my criteria for questionable Singapore art is whether it'll help the other artists - a system that works for Lim Tzay Chuen, since notice of his invisible artworks in academia attracts the international community to other Singapore artists).

Anyway, if you're at Bugis Junction or Raffles City or the Library, hop over to Bras Basah to see the exhibition: